NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 990, 11 May 1911, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Practically all of the 30,000 dogs which were exiled from Constantinople last summer to an island in the Marmoran Sea have died on the barren rocks of disease and thirst. Bread was sent each week from Constantinople, but it was so bad in quality that the dogs preferred to eat their dead companions. An immigrant, who came under the heading of domestic, on one of the direct liners to New Zealand a few weeks back, reported to one of the officers that she had lost her “character," as references are styled in England. She was recommended to interview the captain, and as a result was furnished with: “This is to certify that lost her character on board the s.s. , on the voyage from England to New Zealand.” The Acting Premier of New South Wales recently called for a report concerning the nature of pictures exhibited at biograph entertainments in Sydney and suburbs. The report was to the effect that the attendance at these shows ranged from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand, and that on the whole exception could not fairly be taken to the pictures shown. In a few instances where they were of a questionable kind they were withdrawn upon representations being made. Some were obviously unsuited to children, and bushranging pictures, in which bush desperadoes were depicted as heroes, and the police made to ap pear ridiculous, might be with drawn to advantage. A mau was disturbed bathing in a canal at Melbourne last week. He was wallowing in the mud with every expression of delight, when a crowd of people and two

or three policemen approached. Scenting danger he bolted, clad only in a casing of mud, towards Footscray. That was the last seen of him. The mud seems to have had the effect of making him invisible. A policeman stated that information had been received that a man had been bathing in the mud tor a month past. Perhaps he has read of the curative properties of the mud baths of New Zealand, and discovered that equally good results were obtainable from the Melbourne mud. But until the police find him the question will not be settled.

Old cannon to the extent of 300 tons are to be turned into new coin for France as quickly as possible. In Paris, for some unexplainable reason, the French copper coinage has a way of disappearing, and at the present moment the Mint finds it necessary to make £1 20,000 worth of coins equivalent to pence and halfpence. For this purpose the War Office has made a present to the Mint of the old cannon which are in the forts in and around Paris, and which are of no particular value. This is the first time since the Revolution that the French cannon have been melted down to be made into money.